


In you I see what should never be

by staringatstars



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Dad Reaper | Gabriel Reyes, Implied/Referenced Brainwashing, Implied/Referenced Torture, Memory Alteration, Memory Loss, Talon Jesse McCree
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-19
Updated: 2018-01-23
Packaged: 2019-03-06 21:28:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,687
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13419996
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/staringatstars/pseuds/staringatstars
Summary: Reaper's newest recruit, foisted upon him by Moira, is mouthy, ruthless, and looking to die.





	1. prologue

Talon wasn’t so much an organization as it was a series of individually functioning cells, each fueled by a very simple ideology – chaos. The key was to sew discord into the fabric of peace, to find the weakness in every bond and exploit it, to kill seeds of hope before their roots found purchase in the soil. It was why Reaper found the new Overwatch’s attempts to stamp out each terrorist sect so laughable. At the rate their message spread to the frightened, isolated, spurned, and bored, it was like trying to end a cockroach infestation with a baseball bat. 

However, as disdainful as Reaper found their methods to be, they alone held the power to provide him with the funds and resources to achieve his long sought revenge. Somehow, he knew that he’d never been closer to finding the traitor that ended Overwatch than he'd been since joining up with the lowest rung of society. The only downside was that he was forced to work with Moira again. The way she looked at him, like a vulture waiting for a chance to strike, kept him actively avoiding situations where he might wind up alone in a room with the mad doctor. If he couldn’t kill her, then he didn’t want her within a stone’s throw of him, not when the memory of scalpels on his flesh still jolted him awake in the early hours, disoriented and disassembling. 

The worst part was that she knew exactly what emotions her presence stirred within him, he could see it in the smug curve of her lips whenever circumstance demanded they interact. She may have fooled the council into thinking she was a genius, but he knew bastardized Cadeus tech when he saw it. There was nothing Moira had done that could have been accomplished without the use of Angela’s research as a jumping point, and for that reason, Reaper would never think of her as anything more than a petty thief. 

He’d honestly believed that he couldn’t possibly have held more hatred within his ever-shifting form for the doctor than he already did, but that was before she'd introduced her latest success story and newest addition to his team, a meeting heralded by the clink of spurs and a low, melodic whistle.


	2. meet your new recruit

Before joining Talon, Reaper had known Sombra only tangentially. Thanks to the sheer amount of frustration her handiwork had brought him, the mental picture he’d formed of the illusive hacker had been less-than-pleasant, so you could only imagine his surprise when he witnessed her skills for himself, and recognized the signature style. He hadn’t mentioned anything at the time. Certain she’d tipped him off knowingly, he hadn’t even graced the revelation with a reaction beyond adding the new information to his mental tally of why the hacker was a royal pain in the ass. 

After months of working together, he still couldn’t admit to knowing much about her family or her motives, but he did know her habits, her tells, and in their line of work, that was enough. 

So when a glance at the latest recruit tore her attention away from the wall of security feeds she was gleefully wrecking havoc on during her report, when her jaw dropped in muted astonishment, before snapping shut with her teeth digging into her lower lip, he'd quickly guessed that Moira had brought trouble with her. And he'd been right.

Because standing on the threshold was Jesse McCree, looking all of seventeen again with his beard shaved and his Stetson strangely absent. Yet, those spurs remained on his boots which, along with a cocky smirk, stood out as enduring testaments to the roguish cowboy image he’d conjured up when he was a kid, long before he’d joined a gang or taken up a career in covert ops.

Seeing McCree standing there so calmly, acting like he wasn’t trapped in a nest of vipers, Reaper wasn’t sure if he wanted to kill the kid or shake him. Inside, a quiet part of him despaired - Why couldn’t he have just let his dreams die like the rest of them? 

At Sombra’s subtle movement, Moira’s cool gaze turned sharply on her, analyzing and dissecting. Sensing the danger, Sombra rested the back of her hand against her mouth and faked a cough with a weak chuckle. “Sorry,” she winked, “guess I’m allergic to dorks dressed like Spaghetti Western rejects.” 

McCree’s eyes widened a fraction as he took that in, having apparently not expected the ribbing to start quite so soon, yet he visibly mastered himself, placing the grin back in place with practiced ease as he hooked his thumbs in his pockets and leaned back on his heels. “Didn’t realize this Halloween party had standards.” Pointing at the tips of his boots, he unwittingly risked his life by asking Moira with a teasing lilt, “Be honest with me, doc, am I overdressed?”

Moira looked down her nose at him with a sneer. “Even the miracles of medicine and ingenuity are limited,” she told them, with a pointed glance at Jesse’s choice of footwear, “but… I think you’ll find that the benefits far outweigh the drawbacks of accepting this one into your ranks. He’s learned from the best, after all.”

It was that condescending attitude that nearly broke his self-control. He could feel his nanites starting to respond to the rage and disgust churning within him, marking the beginnings of a frenzy that would subsequently weaken his already unstable corporeal form, which was the last thing he needed right now. A spreading numbness in his limbs suggested that he was already partially intangible, but since every inch of him was covered in black, it was impossible to notice the slip.

Though Sombra may have made a habit of giving him flack for the dramatics, they more than served their purpose. Sometimes, the flashier you are, the less people see. 

His self-evaluation was interrupted, however, by an exaggerated drawl. “Ah ma’am,” it seemed Jesse had perfected his ingratiatingly sincere act over the years, though it didn’t quite manage to fool current company, “you’re making me blush.” But if he kept poking the beehive like this, he wasn’t going to like what came out. This wasn’t some undercover mission or stealth operation. This was walking onto a battlefield with a target on your back. 

Before Moira could do more than smile, Reaper interrupted whatever she’d planned to say with a snarled, “Shut up your mouth, ingrate.”

McCree’s eyebrows shot up his forehead. He rocked forward until his feet were firmly planted, all the while complaining, “Ingrate? I haven’t even done anything yet!”

Reaper shoved past him. “Moira. You. Me. Outside. Now.” And though she stared after him with a frigid expression for longer than anyone was comfortable, the doctor eventually moved to follow, her long, curved fingernails hooking the fabric of Jesse’s sleeve as she did so in an act of silent challenge. Refusing to rise to the bait, Reaper ignored her. “Sombra, don’t let him touch anything while I’m gone.”

The hacker twisted in her rolling leather seat with a quick salute, “I hear ya loud and clear, boss.” The wraith offered her a slight nod before leaving the room with a flourish of billowing fabric, taking with him the quiet, almost imperceptible buzz of milling machinery. 

When the doctor stepped into the hallway, however, McCree took it into his head to call out, “Hey, doc, before you go, any chance of me gettin’ my hat back?” Without a word, Moira stalked out, allowing the door to slam shut behind her. For the most part, Jesse shrugged it off. “No? ‘kay, good talk.”

Once they were both gone and Jesse was certain they were out of earshot, he loudly complained to the hacker with the luminous circuits strapped over the shaved side of her head, “Care to tell me what’s got the Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come so riled up?”

Though her fingers, already back on the keyboard, didn’t pause, Sombra couldn’t help snorting at the comparison. A single glance was all she needed to see that try as he might to hide it, the cowboy was genuinely bothered by the chilly reception. 

“Don’t worry about it too much, Jessito.” She tried, doing her best to sound comforting when sincerity no longer came naturally. “He’s like that with everyone he meets.”

Unexpectedly, the gunslinger's lips quirked into a rueful smile. “And here I thought I was special.”

 

Once he had her somewhere private, in an alcove shielded from the surveillance cameras, Reaper waited exactly the span of a breath before gripping her by her scrawny pale neck and slamming her against the wall. The thud, though gratifying, was undoubtedly loud enough to attract unwanted attention. Unfortunately, the wraith had reached his limit. “What did you do to him?” It came out snarled and gravelly, nearly incomprehensible thanks to his vocal cords collapsing and regenerating with the rest of him. 

Tilting her head with that infuriating smirk of hers, Moira stated, “Merely made some improvements. I take it you’re not a fan?”

One by one, he dug his metal claws into her flesh, pressing the surface until beads of crimson welled beneath their points. “This isn’t the time to play games.” There was a click, a whir, and all at once he began to feel dizzy, weak. Against his will and better judgment, the grip on her throat slackened, and she easily broke free of his hold. Hunching in an effort to keep himself from falling apart, Reaper registered the band of black energy connecting them, and watched with impotent fury as the pinprick holes he’d created in her skin closed without so much as a scar, nothing except an unusual hint of pink that would fade in minutes. 

With his body and concentration failing him, Reaper could do little more than hover threateningly in the space while she brushed herself off, “You were always such a volatile experiment, Reyes.” If he were more stable, he would have wrapped his fingers around her neck again, would have squeezed until she could never again speak that name, but he was expanding, gaseous and menacing as an oversaturated cloud. There was no gleam of fear amidst the unmistakable triumph in her eyes when she simply walked away. "There is a difference between those strapped to the table and those standing above them with the scalpel. Try not to forget that in the future.”


	3. kindred spirits

When asked why he joined Talon, what he could possibly hope to gain, McCree unfailingly responded that he was searching for something, and that he hoped Talon could help him find it, one way or another. 

He never referred to Reaper by anything other than his callsign, never openly challenged him in front of the other agents. It should have been a dream come true. 

It wasn’t. 

Jesse obeyed every order like his life depended on it. He didn’t ask questions or talk back, just did what he was asked without any concern for where’s, why’s, or how’s. It was so similar to how he’d been when Reyes had first fished him out of Deadlock gorge that Reaper was inclined to think he’d forgotten ever joining Blackwatch, except he remembered Ana’s tricks. He remembered Deadeye. 

Even so, Jesse let himself be pointed, aimed, and fired. Just like the weapon Reyes had promised him he’d never be. 

Every time they went on a mission, Reaper secretly hoped that Jesse would ask who their target was, that he would demand to know if they deserved to have their life snuffed out from the shadows. But he never did. And the wraith was forced to grapple with the knowledge that everyday he was breaking the promise a dead man had made to a frightened child. 

Out of everything he could have unlearned, though, every lesson he could have forgotten, the worst was the very first thing Reyes had ever taught him – that his life was far too valuable to be thrown away in a gun fight. 

“McCree, get down!” They’re sitting ducks in a hail of bullets, taking fire from a warehouse full of Los Muertos punks that had somehow stumbled in on their weapons cache. From his crouched position behind a row of crates, each of which were filled with cartridges, grenades, and other equipment that likewise was known for their nasty tendency to combust, he could just make out the spiked neon mohawks, luminescent body paint, and ragged crop tops of the intruders. On his own, Reaper could have dispatched them easily, could have made an example of the _idiotas_ , and made sure these were the only punks in all of Mexico that would ever attempt a heist this stupid, but the cowboy stood in his way, his Peacekeeper held high as he faced down the enemy fire with a fearless grin cut into his features. It was almost like the lead was repelled by him, and it must have been, because McCree never even so much as shifted to avoid a single bullet. 

There was a _crack_ from the revolver, followed by another, and a pair of the thieves went down, one clutching his leg while the other cradled the bleeding stumps at the end of his now empty and useless trigger hand. They weren’t shots aimed to kill, but to incapacitate and maim, which required a considerable amount of skill, as hands and thighs weren’t ever as easily accessible in a firefight as the head and torso.

Finally, McCree fanned the hammer, taking out the remaining five in as many seconds. Instead of bodies, the battle ended with a series of pained cries and groans, which McCree would later explain made for a much better warning than a bunch of dead _cabrons_. “It’s always the complainers that strike fear into their lot," he'd said knowingly. "Most of ‘em think they ain’t afraid to die, but threaten ‘em with a few aches and bruises and they’ll be keepin’ real clear of your turf in no time. There’s no quantifying death, but pain... Pain's something else.”

“That true for you, as well, Agent McCree?” Reaper couldn’t quite stop himself from asking in the following debrief. 

Jesse had blinked with surprise at the unexpected comment, before smiling blandly, a haunted look in his eyes. “To be honest… I ain’t exactly its biggest fan.” 

Even as a terrorist, Reaper had found that there was no end to paperwork, and so adherence to mission protocol and the chain of command needed to be recorded. Except it was difficult to focus when the kid was bleeding a healthy amount from his side and shoulder. Apparently, he’d been winged after all, but though Reaper had demanded he go to med to have the wounds treated, the _vaquero_ had balked at the idea, digging his heels in like a pit of vipers waited for him in the clinic. 

Surprisingly, Sombra figured it out before he did. While normally Moira could be found in her lab, every now and then she liked to catch up on events in the medical ward. Today, she was examining some of the new recruits and offering an unsympathetic ear to any patient who came to her with anything less than a missing limb or punctured artery. 

However, as much as he understood the fear, Reaper just couldn’t abide by the cowboy bleeding all over the floor. Someone was going to have to patch him up. 

A splash of color peeked into Reaper’s peripheral vision, and he tilted his head slightly to see Sombra standing behind him with a First Aid kit pulled from the ether and a needle. McCree looked so relieved to see her the tension melted out of him and he nearly slumped out of his seat. “Has anyone ever told you you’re an angel?”

After glancing at Reaper to check his reaction, Sombra stepped closer with a snickered, “You think I’d be hanging out here with you _pendejos_ if I were an angel?”

Mirroring her amusement with a low, exhausted chuckle, McCree responded casually with,“ And why not? Everyone knows all the best angels got kicked out of Heaven.”

It wasn’t the nicest thing anyone had every said to the hacker, or even all that clever, but it’d been a long time since she’d found herself dealing with someone who was as effortlessly kind as this cowboy was. Biting back an honest smile, she hastily set about stitching his shoulder up and bringing his temperature down, all the while thinking to herself that having a new addition to the team might not have been such a bad idea, after all.

 

This thought lasted a whole two days before Reaper’s shallow well of patience abruptly ran dry. McCree had been leaning on Sombra’s shoulders as she worked, keeping up a steady stream of banter and conversation, before he made the mistake of mentioning Morrison. Honestly, it was just a passing comparison, a reminiscence that would have passed without acknowledgement if Reaper hadn’t been paying attention. The very gall of McCree to never mention him once, to act as though none of his teachings or trainings had made a dent in that thick skull of his, only to turn around and joke about the Strike Commander like no time had passed, like Reyes hadn’t been there when the Swiss base collapsed on Jack Morrison’s head.

It was enough to paint the world in swathes of crimson. Reaper slammed a fist onto the keyboard, ruining Sombra’s coding, which she loudly informed him of shortly after. Unlike most, she wasn’t afraid of him or his temper. For some reason, Reaper had assumed the same of McCree, but he’d been wrong again, because there was a barrel pressed against his temple that hadn’t been there a second ago, and McCree was trembling, his eyes blown wide, his face ashen. 

Reaper glanced from the cowboy to his curled fist and back again, the gears in his mind turning as another piece of the puzzle fell into place. He’d trained these knee-jerk reactions to jarring sounds and violence out of McCree, had conditioned him to keep his calm even if the Devil himself were screaming in his ear. 

For days, he’d wondered what could have caused the kid to turn, and now he was starting to get a good idea of what exactly it was that Moira had done to him. 

“Is now a bad time?” A dry voice asked from behind him. Ignoring both McCree's sharp intake and Sombra’s accusing glare, Reaper looked over his shoulder to see Widow sitting in an armchair. As though to answer the unspoken question of exactly how she’d managed to slip into the room without him noticing, she simply cocked her head in the direction of a nearby window. “You left it open.” 

Unexpectedly, McCree brightened at the revelation. “Why use a perfectly good door when you can be all sneaky-like, am I right?” The revolver fell to his side as the color seeped back into his cheeks, though he didn’t seem to notice. “Reminds me of a friend of mine.” 

Where Jesse and Sombra were emotive and spirited, firecrackers lighting up the dark with color and light and sound, Amelie was withdrawn. Even when she was in the room, it was like a part of her was never really present. But when her cool gaze flicked to McCree then, her features briefly softened. “Moira’s asking for you, Agent McCree. She says it is time for your treatment.” Jesse stiffened, a bead of sweat dripped down the side of his neck. The next time Widow spoke, her words could almost be described as gentle, “It always hurts less if you don’t fight, _mon cher_.”

The cowboy made no effort to conceal his doubt as he reached for his hat with a shaking hand, “Don’t think I believed ya the first time, darlin’,” only to be forcibly reminded of its absence. Considering who'd given it to him, Reaper was surprised he'd even remembered it. 

It was after McCree had packed up and left to make his appointment with the good doctor, and long after anyone who would care to hear had stopped listening, that the Widow finally admitted to the empty room that the gunslinger was right. Nothing, not time nor exposure, could ever make the reconditioning treatments hurt less. After enough of them, though, the cowboy would be grateful to feel anything at all.


	4. a dead man's promise

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw: this chapter contains a brief scene of torture at the beginning

It didn’t take much to convince Moira to allow him to watch the treatment, probably because she was always so eager to flaunt her handiwork. Reaper watched the procedure from behind an observation window, along with a blond Talon agent he’d never seen before. Neither of them spoke when the tubes were inserted into McCree’s veins, or when they stuck the electrodes on his bare torso and temples. Reaper watched as the cowboy struggled not to flinch at the cold, as he bit back a cry when the first jolt of electricity coursed through his body, making his muscles tense and spasm. 

Simultaneously, an IV drip pumped drugs into his system. Drugs to keep him docile, drugs to make him suggestible, drugs to heighten the agony, drugs to keep him from passing out, and drugs to make it all sit in his subconscious like some kind of nightmarish fever dream. 

The agents on the other side of the glass showed him a picture. Jesse groaned. “Who is that supposed to be? Are you telling me I should know this guy?” He writhed as another shock was sent through his system. Reaper felt an odd sensation in his chest, something akin to the echo of glass shattering in the middle of a tunnel. Jesse strained against his bindings, snarling in their faces, “What do you want from me, huh? Why don't you try telling me for a change, you cowards!” The current increased and he slammed his head back against the table with a tortured scream. 

Eventually, the time came when Reaper could no longer bring himself to watch, and he strode briskly out of the room, leaving the nameless Talon agent to wonder at his sudden departure.

 

Afterwards, Reaper began screening the cowboy’s mission assignments. He’d always suspected that the kid hadn’t joined Talon willingly, but seeing it for himself had brought a new sense of reality to the fact, and the thought of sending him after Overwatch when the wraith was the only one of the two with a grudge to settle didn’t sit right with him. He told himself he didn’t need McCree’s help, that his skills would be easily neutralized by combatants who’d fought with him in Blackwatch, but it’d been years since Reaper had believed his own lies. Still, they were easier to swallow than the slim possibility that Gabriel Reyes wasn’t as dead as he’d thought. More than a commander, Reyes had been a mentor and a teacher, and what teacher would ever want to live to see the day that his best students were pitted against each other? 

Moira must have caught wind of something, though, because orders soon came for McCree to join in recruit initiation procedures. It was torture, plain and simple, but McCree had just shrugged, like he couldn’t have cared less.

“Agent McCree,” Jesse stopped at the door, a palm placed over his holster while his other hand curled into a fist around the file he’d received containing his latest assignment. “Are you sure you’re okay with this?”

He hesitated, like he was gauging whether or not the question was a trick. Reaper wished it was. “I’m a killer, Reaps,” Jesse said finally, sadly. “Nothing more and nothing less.” He rubbed a calloused palm over his eyes, and when the hand fell, there was tired resignation and pity carved into the lines of his mouth and the slump of his broad shoulders. “So why do I keep getting the feeling you’re trying to convince me of something different?”

It only got worse over time. McCree wasn’t made for wanton violence or cruelty. It tore him apart inside. Reaper caught him sitting in the lounge room more than once, nursing a whiskey as the sky gradually shifted from dark blues and violets to a soft yellow and a hint of pink on the horizon. 

It culminated in the cowboy deliberately provoking the other agents, until eventually they hauled him off to be thrown into a cell. As he was being dragged away, Reaper glimpsed his expression, and the sheer relief it expressed sent a chill through his congealed blood. 

By the time he found himself standing outside the cell, his feet having led him there on their own, the agents had already done a number on the cowboy. Blood streamed down his face from a split lip and a broken nose, yet he was grinning, and when the pistol aimed at his forehead was dug into his flesh, Jesse laughed. 

“Give me one good reason,” the Talon agent from Jesse’s reconditioning session snarled, “why I should let trash like you live, and maybe I will.” Reaper guessed there was a story behind the hatred burning in his eyes. He didn’t care much to find out what it was, though. 

Throwing his weight forward, Jesse forced the man to take a step back, “Sorry, hoss. I got nothing.” The cowboy shrugged with practiced nonchalance when the agent scowled, his finger curling over the trigger. “Guess you’ll just have to shoot me.” 

“Don’t call ‘em that, kid.” The wrath stepped out of the shadows and into the cell with his shotgun raised and aimed at the Talon soldier’s temple. “You don’t take orders from him.” 

It was almost disappointing how McCree didn’t even look surprised to see him. “What’s brought you here, Spooks?”

Opting not to divide his attention, Reaper focused on the Talon soldier. The agent’s expression was clouded with confusion, but that wasn’t going to last for much longer. Soon, he’d shake off the shock of having the rug pulled out from under him by an agent of higher ranking, and when he did, there’d be no putting Jesse back together again.“Pull that trigger,” Reaper growled, “and it’ll be the last thing you ever do.”

Rather than comply, the agent shifted to grip the handle of his pistol more firmly. “My orders were to put him down if he caused any trouble.” It was the cool and mechanical way in which he relayed his task that forced Reaper to suppress a groan. It was a hell of thing when robots acted with more independent thought and free will than the humans that created them. 

“Are those orders worth your life?”

A long moment passed where the agent simply stared at him, considering. Meanwhile, Jesse didn’t say a word. Reaper glanced quickly at him just to make sure he was still conscious. Finally, the agent stepped back, allowing his firearm to fall to his side with a defeated sigh, “Just shoot me. Considering what’ll happen to me if Talon finds out I let him go, it’d be a mercy.”

Reaper nodded. “I’m sorry.” And pulled the trigger. 

In the short time following his comprehension of the situation and the agent’s body hitting concrete without resistance, Jesse had tried to protest, but when it became overwhelmingly obvious that the agent wasn’t getting up again, McCree fell into silence, staring mutely at the corpse with wide, disbelieving eyes. He didn’t say anything as Reaper pulled him away, didn't even lift his gaze off the ground.

Cameras powered down wherever they walked, hallways they traveled through sealed shut behind them, and the lights flickered – once, twice – before finally shutting down for good. Someone was wrecking havoc on the Talon base’s security system, the result being a state of chaos that provided enough of a distraction for the pair to slip out past the guards. 

The final defense, a large gate built like the entrance to a bomb shelter, ran on a back-up generator, however. Thus, it was already closing when Reaper arrived with the semi-conscious cowboy. “Wake up, _vaquero._ ” The opening was only wide enough to fit one of them, which was fine by him.

He shoved Jesse out into the snow-covered field outside, and had just enough time to see him stumble groggily and fall before the gate slammed shut behind him. 

Within seconds, the security and electricity was up and running again. The wraith ghosted through the corridors, forgoing his corporeal form entirely in his haste to get to Sombra. He was sure she’d be tapped into the camera feeds. It was an assumption which was proved correct the instant he found her in front of her computer screens, because every screen showed Jesse sitting outside in the snow, disoriented and confused. His breath steamed in front of him, wispy clouds of white yanked into oblivion by the howling wind. 

A shadow fell over him. “Why aren’t you running?” Widow didn’t wear a coat, not when her body temperature finally matched her surroundings. The flakes that clung to her skin and hair didn’t melt, and so she stood over him, beautiful and deadly with a rifle in her hand. Reaper didn’t wait to find out what happened next. For the second time that day, he allowed his form to break into smoke, and slipped into the vents. It was the fastest path to the outdoors. 

He could only hope it would be enough.

 

Startled by the presence of Talon’s best sniper, McCree blinked up at her sluggishly. “I don’t have any place to go, ma’am. I think I might be lost.” He was so cold. 

You are,” she agreed. “Do you want to go back?” Jesse stared at her dumbly, then slowly shook his head. “Where do you want to go?’

After a moment of thought, he replied, “Home.”

The sniper nodded understandingly. Beyond that, however, she was very, disconcertingly still. “Where is your home, Jesse McCree?”

Suddenly anxious, Jesse swallowed. “I don’t have one. Not anymore.” Then, though he knew it was irrational, and he didn’t quite understand it himself, he met her cool gaze with a request, “But I want to go there. Can you do that?”

Again, she nodded, shifting slightly as she positioned the rifle. “ _Oui, mon cher_. Close your eyes.” He did. 

Neither of them expected the furious cloud of smoke that descended from the ceiling to plunge directly in front of the cowboy. “Don’t,” the amorphous mass crackled with its incomplete vocal chords. “He’s not yours to take.”

Widow shook her head. “I gave him a choice, Reaper. He wants to go home.” The rifle remained lifted, directed at the heart of the man slumped behind the mass. 

“They’ve messed with his head, Lacroix,” the specter leaking black gaseous tendrils managed to rasp. “He doesn’t know what he wants.” It was the smothered note of desperation that baffled the Widow. She couldn’t fathom why the universe had seen to it to deny her this one act of mercy, and through the means of a being so warped by vengeance at that.

“To let him live now,” she cautioned in a last bid to make the wraith see reason, “would be cruel.”

_**“Leave.”** _

At last, Widow did as he asked, slinging the rifle over her shoulder with ease as she turned to walk back into the snow, though not before gifting the Reaper with a parting, “Do not blame me when he breaks your heart.”

He didn’t move, didn't even breath until he was sure she was gone. Then he spun around to grab the cowboy by the arm. “Come on, kid,” Reyes urged. It scared him how cold the cowboy was. “Let’s get you inside.” McCree groaned at the movement when Reaper wrapped his arm around his neck in an attempt to take as much of his weight as he could manage. 

“’m head hurts,” Jesse mumbled. “Hey… “ Reaper didn’t answer right away. He was too busy trying to signal Sombra. Someone needed to open the gate to let them back in. “‘m missing something, ain’t I?” That, however, got the wraith’s attention. His brow furrowed in frustration, Jesse seemed to grope for the words with a palm placed over his chest, “It’s like there’s this nothingness gone so deep inside me it might as well be all there is.” 

“You’ve never been nothing, Jesse.” It came out harsh, as everything he said did, as though he’d taken to gargling with acid instead of mouthwash, but Jesse didn’t even know who he was at the moment, so he tried not to let it bother him too much. “Someday, you’re gonna remember that.” 

Drowsy and dazed, Jesse nodded. Then by some buried instinct that told him he was in good hands, decided he was safe enough to pass out. Grumbling half-hearted complaints under his breath, Reaper gathered the man up in his arms. When he was done, an alarm sounded, and the gate lifted off the ground, enough to allow for a wraith and the cowboy he carried to slip through, hopefully unnoticed. 

Sombra looked on sadly when he passed her on the way to Jesse’s quarters. He’d have to thank her later for putting her neck on the line for him and McCree, but for now, the priority was setting him down and letting him sleep off the past few weeks. 

“You’re too big for this now, _vaquero_ ,” Reaper grunted as he dropped the cowboy on his bed. Upon spotting a very familiar Stetson sitting on the edge of his pillow, the wraith almost smiled.

Honestly, looking at him now, curled up on top of the covers with his arms guarding his head even in his sleep, saying Jesse looked young was like saying the sun was bright or the night was dark. More than that, though, he looked frail and half-starved, like a wayward woodland creature could knock flat on his rear.

Certainly, he didn’t look like he could take another one of Moira’s reconditioning sessions, but in the end, it wouldn't matter. Because none of them were ever going to touch him again.


End file.
